At least the NY Daily News names the NRA's Wayne La Pierre (bottom right) an equal opportunity terrorist to Syed Farook and the butchers below!
"I need a gun because he has a gun, and he has a gun because that other guy has a gun, and that other guy has a gun because those guys over there have guns, and they have guns because the cops have guns, and so the cops need more guns to protect themselves from all the people out there with guns. The gun manufacturers, the bullet manufacturers and the NRA laugh all the way to the bank, their hands dripping crimson as they count their money. Maybe what happened in San Bernadino was ideologically driven terrorism. It was still a mass shooting because you can practically pick assault rifles from the trees like dark apples in this country."- William Rivers Pitt, on smirkingchimp.com yesterday, 'Slaughter Is the Standard in the U.S.
The sane citizen must grudgingly admire the way the political Right's screech monkeys twist things around to their benefit. After the Newtown massacre it was widely circulated that it was really a "false flag" operation, carried out by "actors" from the government as a ruse and excuse to take away god fearin' 'Muricans' guns. After Colorado Springs, it was claimed by many that Robert Lewis Dear was really a "left wing terrorist" and he actually "signed up to vote as a woman once" which "proves it". All of which is palpable, screech monkey bullshit pulled out of their asses with zero evidence. (Or perhaps they heard it on Limburger's show or on FAUX News).
Now, we behold the lawyer hired by the (Syed) Farook family actually taking another page from InfoWars' Alex Jones and - at a news conference - claiming the San Bernardino massacre didn't really happen as portrayed and was yet another "false flag" with the objective to force powerful gun laws to take citizens' guns away. From this, as Rachel Maddow observed last night, one wonders how much nuttier this nation can get. Well, a lot, if its people lack logic and critical thinking skills.
But it also shows clearly - given the fright aroused on the Right with this false flag BS - that despite the suspects being named as part of a terror incident, we need to absolutely keep the heat on for gun control no matter what these demented fuckers spout. They know, even here in a gun lovin' state like Colorado, Gov. Hickenlooper's aides and friends are now broaching much stricter gun regulation measures. (Denver Post, Dec. 2, p. 3A)
Meanwhile, FBI head James Comey announced yesterday the Bureau's investigators have determined the San Bernardino massacre was perpetrated by two individuals who were inspired by ISIS . Female Pakistani Tashfeen Malik made a FB "pledge" (to El Baghdadi) but there is no evidence it was "directed" by ISIS, i.e. they were following orders or part of a terror network. That's a huge difference but one likely to be lost on the screaming zealots determined to turn Americans into security sissies ready to grab any gun they can.,. or hide under their beds in fear.
Make no mistake this is still about guns, namely the modified AR-15s used to carry out the attack. As noted in a CBS News segment last night, all the major massacres of the past few years, including the Aurora theater massacre, the Newtown massacre (by Adam Lanza), and the one at Umpqua Community College "shared a common thread"- they were all carried out with the AR-15. The San Bernardino case was especially violent because the FBI reports the AR-15s used were "modified" to be more lethal. (They are still trying to ascertain exactly how this modification was done.) The same segment also observed the AR-15 is "Americans' favorite rifle".
WTF? WHY? You don't need an AR-15 to hunt a deer or a cougar, not if you're man enough! A simple, basic Remington 30.06 ought to do. Also, you don't need an AR-15 for "home protection"!. I mean Jeezus, it's a military assault weapon! WTF are you protecting against, a Martian invasion? In fact, there was once a nationwide ban on similar (but automatic) weapons after a series of mass shootings in 1994. But the ban was removed ten years later with predictable results and an ever spiking increase in mass shootings. (As I will show in a future post it is relatively easy to convert a semi-automatic AR-15 to an automatic.)
But all of this - now emphasized by the idiotic rhetoric on the Right (with the likes of Ted Cruz saying we "need more guns to shoot bad guys with guns") showed how the 2nd amendment has been deliberately perverted by the NRA and its gun nut denizens. Go back to the Supreme Court ruling in 1939, marking the first time the gun crazies lost. FDR's Solicitor General framed the argument correctly to the Court:
"The Second Amendment grants people a right that is not one which may be utilized for private purposes but only exists where the arms are borne in a militia or some other military organization provided by law and intended for protection of the State."
The SC decision was unanimous. So what the hell happened to mutate American brains away from sane interpretations of the 2nd?
While this sober take prevailed for several more decades, it started to unravel by the 1970s as various Right wing groups coalesced to challenge gun control based on the spurious concept of "private gun ownership" interpretations. Thereby, and via mass mind-fucking in concert with ferocious lobbying, they successively overturned laws in state legislatures - much like the abortion opponents are now doing, especially via the specious "personhood" amendments and laws.
Chief Justice Warren Burger responded at the time that this personal ownership interpretation was "one of the greatest pieces of fraud on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
The tragedy is that it worked! And even today has worked to allow some of the most devastating weapons to fall into massive use - even for such innocuous activities as target practice! Reminding me of a horrific incident that occurred in the Pike National Forest barely 8 months ago when a dad out camping there with his family took semi-automatic rounds in the head. He was a victim of assholes "target practicing" with AR-15s in the same woods.
As I predicted two posts ago, the Right's loons would focus on the perps (Syed Farooq & wife, Tashfeen Malik) and now this "inspired by ISIS terror" link to go batshit crazy. This has led them to launch a crusade on Islamic terrorists despite the fact the use of guns was the deciding factor in the extent of the slaughter and many other killings.
Those like Christie are even proposing bringing back the NSA's bulk collection of phone records, instead of implementing the USA Freedom Act which restricts that dragnet collection. But to show what hypocrites the Right and its security parrots are, they won't even allow a law to be passed that closes gun purchases to those on the 'No Fly' list, i.e. effectively terrorists on the TSA Terror watch list!
Meanwhile, the likes of Paul Ryan insist "We can't be sure those on the 'no fly' list really deserve to be there". So get this: While the Right uses dumb analogies like, "Would you really take a chance of eating an M&M from a giant bowl of 10,000 if one was laced with cyanide?' they are quite ok with thousands on the no fly list buying lethal weapons. (Over 2,400 such purchases have been made since 2010). And let's not even get into the legal loophole that allows any crazy or terrorist to purchase a lethal weapon like an AR-15 from a private seller - whereas a background check is needed in the case of a regular commercial seller.
They also fret about Syrian refugees bringing home terror when terror is all around us right now with nearly 80 killed each goddamned day! And WHERE is this terror coming from? Well, it's not from ISIS radicals or Wahabbi maniacs but from our own literal home grown killers!
The unholy truth is that most shootings are NOT ideological, terror-based or random but rather domestic (in people's homes) - either suicides or one spouse (usually male) killing the other after a fiery argument. Assaying all mass shootings between 2009 and 2015, the Huffington Post found that 70 percent occurred in the home. Of these, 57 percent involved a family member or current or former intimate partner. 81 percent of the victims were women and children. These killings were not done by 'crazies' or Islamic terrorists but usually normal people who simply lost it in the midst of a heated argument and reached for the weapon nearest and dearest - a gun.
In this light, and as the NY Daily News featured on its headline, it is the NRA's Wayne LaPierre who qualifies as the real terrorist because it is HE who has made available the millions of lethal weapons to kill so many Americans (many more than ISIS could) by refusing to implement sane gun laws. Such as universal background checks, and reinstating the ban on semi-automatic weapons that had endured through the Clinton years.
Anyone who now tells you to focus on terror and Islamic terrorists to the exclusion of gun regulation is trying to mind fuck you. If they present plans to vet terrorists but not to prevent terrorists from buying lethal weapons - like the AR -15- they are talking shit, pure and simple. As much shit as those who babble that Robert Lewis Dear was a "left wing terrorist". But hey, if Farook's family hired this lawyer because they fear gun control as a result, maybe Farook was really a Right wing terrorist trying to make it look like a Muslim terror attack. If people want to go down mindfuck labyrinths there are many ways to proceed!
If Repubs and others also resort to smokescreens like "new mental health laws", without concomitant gun control, you also know they are talking shit because not all the deadly gun incidents occurring each day in this country are done by "crazies" or by Islamics. They are done by family members who lost it during an argument and grabbed a gun- likely bought and placed in the home for "protection".
If we lose perspective on the true source of our massacre problems in this country we are doomed to never escape them - even if we manage to put all the heads of every ISIS and al Qaeda terrorist on spikes - dotting the Mall in Washington, D. C.
And the 'pukes and their fellow travelers in the NRA damned well know that!
See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/65051/what-rough-beast-slaughter-is-the-standard-in-the-us
No comments:
Post a Comment